Too Long
by dualAuxiliatrix
Summary: Porrim and Aranea chat briefly after some time about their situation, and both of the two find themselves disappointed in what the other has become.


While in their deaths most of them had made efforts to help the others, it was expected for things to become boring at a rather quick rate. There was so much to be done, but at the same time, only so much that could be done. What had begun as a noble quest to try again had soon spiraled down into and endless tirade of gossip, and even those typically adoring of the teen drama found themselves getting a little bit sick of it. Which is it say, Porrim had finally gotten her fix of teenage bullshit for the rest of her afterlife. While alive, she made every attempt imaginable to break away from what was expected of her as a troll of jade blood, but rebellious or not, she found herself suffering with a guilty pleasure; meddling in the business of others. And meddle she did. Soon after her death however, whether as a result of maturity or plain boredom of the subject, she had begun to lose interest in gossip. Everyone simply seemed to go in circles. She slept with who she pleased when she grew particularly bored, but it had long since stopped being something for people to note, and was expected of her. Porrim had begun to take the time to question previous decisions, but furthermore, couldn't help but wonder what the long-term effects of immortality were. The mind was not conditioned to continue living after experiencing death, even if she was merely a ghost. It was nothing but the same thing over and over again, in an almost animalistic way, and her mind was not the only one dulled by it.

Porrim sat by the beach, watching the strange water glisten in what one could call the sunlight. Not far from here, Cronus was making poor attempts to hit on Kankri, who simply blew his whistle repeatedly and began ranting about the dangers of triggers, and how what Cronus was saying could easily offend someone. It was a predictable occurance. Kankri really never did seem to give up on his attempts to keep everyone perfectly unoffended. A little farther away, one could hear Aranea making polite conversation, and doing most of the talking, as usual boring Meenah thoroughly. It wouldn't be long before Meenah's snarky comments would cause Aranea to storm off in search of new ears to fill, and Meenah to search for more loot. Glancing over at the two, Porrim barely took note as Aranea abandoned the conversation, starting to make way towards Porrim. What was unexpected, however, was when Aranea made the unusual decision to take a seat beside Porrim in the sand, staring thoughtfully at the water.

Aranea was perhaps one of the few that had yet to give up hope after so long, and to many of the others, her often cheery mood accompanied by her tendencies to babble endlessly about nearly any topic was irritating. Porrim, however, had not fallen victim to such an irritation. The two trolls had barely spoken since their fling long ago, though it was impossible to tell how long ago it was considering that it was impossible to know how long they had been dead. A young naive Porrim, unaware of Aranea's red feelings towards her, intended a single night of fun between the two. After which, Aranea realized it had only been a one-night stand and was heartbroken, and Porrim found herself confused and without a moirail. Porrim blamed herself for the destruction of their friendship, and the two avoided one another. It was far too difficult to make normal conversation on any other day between one another without feeling overcome with a mix of nostalgia and discomfort. Up until today, the two had said little other than the occasional hello.

Turning her attention away from the water, Aranea looked back at Porrim. Her blank white eyes held the gaze of the other. She smiled before looking down at the sand beneath her. Talking to Porrim always used to make her feel so much better. She hadn't spoken to Porrim in a long time. Part of her wanted very badly to just rest her head on the other girl's shoulder, and to talk, and talk, and talk. Seeing Porrim there had reminded her of how nice it used to be, talking to her. Maybe they could just look past the incident, and rekindle the friendship, she hoped, or at the very least have a decent conversation. She really needed it. There was so much that she wanted to say to Porrim, so many questions to be asked and subjects to discuss.

Aranea looked back over at Porrim, speaking quietly and trying to hide any amount of clear nervousness from her voice. "Hello." Porrim looked back over at her. "Hey." Conversation had been initiated, and Aranea already found herself fretting over her word choice as she so often did around Porrim. The two hadn't spoken in ages and all she can do is choke out a greeting? After taking an awkward moment of silence to collect herself, she spoke up again, this time not looking Porrim in the eyes "We did a lot of pointless things, growing up." And it had begun, once Aranea got herself talking, it would take her some time to stop.

"Do you ever stop to consider that? In our death we have found ourselves so incapable of accomplishing anything of much value and yet even when alive what did we do that was so important? The game could have been played by other groups, perhaps with more success. In the end it was mistakes that seemed trivial at the time that led us here. Once silly feuds amongst ourselves were taken too far. We were kids with too much power. We were always kids, yet we had found ourselves incapable of thinking of ourselves in such a manner, just because we had found ourselves with an odd streak of luck throwing ourselves into something we originally viewed as a game. The notion that, as kids, we were going to play a game that would end in us accomplishing so much had gotten out of our control. It was too much. We were at an age to make mistakes, and suddenly, every mistake became that much bigger. Trivial things stopped being trivial. Silly feuds took lives. Now we can partake in all of the trivial activities we please, but is this really all that's left? "Aranea sighed, looking rather defeated."Dead or not, this is no way to live. "

"Yet to search for a purpose in death is even more difficult than looking for one while alive." Porrim replied, "We've done what we can. I don't think there's anything left for us to do of much importance, we simply have to look for more interesting unimportant acts. Expanding knowledge, I guess. We have eternity, I doubt there will be enough to do forever. Just because we can't affect much else doesn't mean that we can't do things that aren't important to ourselves. If we wanted, we could spend our little part of eternity bettering ourselves. But as most would see it, we can always do that later. After all, later will always be there. "

Aranea shook her head. "Such depressing thoughts are difficult when all you have is your thoughts. I'm not ready to give in to the mindless dull of forever. "Porrim laughed lightly. "Good for you, prolonging it. Tell me how that works out for you, if you remember! "Aranea frowned sternly. "You've changed, Porrim. You've changed a lot from the girl that I once envied. I miss that girl. "The blue blooded troll reaches over, setting her hand gently over the Porrim's. After a moment of silence, she stands, and walks away.


End file.
